Security officials said police in Islamabad had orders to take some 35 opposition leaders into preventive custody - many of them linked to the prime minister overthrown by Musharraf or a coalition of Islamist parties opposed to the president's alliance with the United States.

Police served a warrant on Javed Hashmi, acting president of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim league-N, at an apartment complex for lawmakers in the government district. The warrant said he would be jailed for 30 days to stop him from making inflammatory speeches at protests where ``miscreants'' could ``cause disruption and acts of sabotage and terrorism.''

Hashmi, who was not immediately led away, said Musharraf's Western backers should press the military-led government to uphold the same democratic standards that they enjoy.

``They are ruling the country with the gun in hand,'' Hashmi told an Associated Press reporter at his apartment, where four armed police stood guard outside. ``They think that the (military) uniform, not the people of Pakistan, are the source of power.''

Not good. Mushraff originally promised to take off his uniform before his re-election this time around - then changed his story to say he would step down after the election. Now it seems to me that he's ready to go back on his latest promise too.

And I fully expect that if he does, the U.S. will go right on supporting him, making a sad joke yet again out of rhetoric about spreading democracy.